Last Survivor of Original Search Party for Amelia Earhart & LDS Convert Reflects on 100 Years of Life

One hundreds years. That’s how long Richard Beckham has been alive. A century. Ten decades. That’s thirty-six thousand, five hundred and twenty-five sunrises and sunsets.

In Beckham’s lifetime, America survived the Depression, the ‘70s and leisure suits, Lindy crossed the Atlantic, Amelia Earhart disappeared, two world wars and the Cold War came and went, Einstein theorized relativity, the nuclear bomb exploded, the Beatles sang, Armstrong walked on the moon, TV, computers, smartphones and texting were created.

Beckham lived through it all. Actually, he was in the middle of some of it. He is the last survivor of the official Navy search party that was dispatched to the South Pacific to find Earhart. It was Beckham who sent the first message to the world of Earhart’s fate.

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